February, 18 2015, 10:45am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Email:,info(at)fwwatch(dot)org,Seth Gladstone -,sgladstone@fwwatch.org
Freedom of Information? Not Where Food Safety is Concerned
Food & Water Watch slams USDA’s FSIS for Culture of Non-Transparency
WASHINGTON
Pointing out the critical role that public information plays in food safety, today Food & Water Watch slammed USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service for failing to operate within a culture of transparency. In a letter sent to Brian Ronholm, Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety, and FSIS Acting Administrator Alfred V. Almanza, the national advocacy organization described what it sees as attempts by FSIS to thwart transparency in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process.
The letter highlights an internal posting at FSIS spotted by Food & Water Watch personnel about an upcoming FSIS Office of Public Affairs and Consumer Education seminar for employees about the FOIA process. The event posting posed such questions as: "Is what we write in our work emails private?" "Can a member of the public request them?" "Would FSIS-USDA have to provide them?" An accompanying graphic showed an image of a FOIA request being shredded.
"FSIS owes it to the American people to prove that the food they eat and feed their families is safe, and part of that mandate includes responding to requests for information in a timely and transparent manner," said Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter. "From the announcement of this seminar, to stalling in responding to FOIA requests and redacting key information, FSIS is making a mockery of a crucial element of the freedom of information process."
The letter also recalls a pattern of stonewalling on the part of the agency to release crucial food safety information to public interest organizations and the media. For example, on October 17, 2013, Food & Water Watch filed a FOIA request for all agency records, including emails, associated with food-borne illness outbreaks caused by contaminated poultry products processed by Foster Farms between June 1, 2012 and October 17, 2013. During that time period, poultry products processed by Foster Farms facilities were implicated in two separate food-borne illness outbreaks investigated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that sickened 768 consumers, hospitalizing a significant number of them. Food & Water Watch has yet to receive a complete response from the agency.
With the President's 2016 budget for FSIS cutting $4.9 million from the budget for meat and poultry inspection, and new trade agreements such as the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership expected to further weaken food safety, advocates worry that these problems will only get worse.
"The Obama administration once boasted that it would be the most transparent in history, yet FSIS' sluggish and shoddy response record to information requests highlights how far from reality those claims are. FSIS is doing Americans a huge disservice by thwarting attempts to shed light on our nation's food safety system," concluded Hauter.
Read the letter here.
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
Mass Disenfranchisement for Felony Convictions Makes US an 'Outlier Nation'
"The right to vote, and the legitimacy of the democratic system in the United States, should not depend on its criminal legal system, which is built upon and perpetuates discrimination," said an advocate with Human Rights Watch.
Jun 27, 2024
The common U.S. practice of stripping the franchise from people with criminal convictions leaves the country "out of step with the rest of the world," according to a report published Thursday by the Sentencing Project, Human Rights Watch, and the ACLU.
Despite recent progress in some states, the groups estimated that more than 4.4 million U.S. residents were disenfranchised because of a felony conviction as of 2022, and "thousands more eligible voters were unable to cast their ballot because they were in prison."
"The states with the most restrictive disenfranchisement laws are those with the highest percentages of Black and Latinx people," the new report notes. "Eleven U.S. states permanently disenfranchise at least some people with felony convictions for the rest of their lives. Fourteen U.S. states disenfranchise people both for the duration of their prison sentence and, upon their return to the community, during the time they are under parole or felony probation supervision. An additional state, Louisiana, restores voting rights to people on felony probation and parole once they have been out of prison for five years or more."
"Twenty-three states restore voting rights to people when they return to the community from prison," the report adds, "although at least four states that otherwise restore voting rights after a felony conviction permanently disenfranchise residents for certain election practices."
The 55-page analysis places U.S. disenfranchisement laws alongside the practices of 136 other countries with populations over 1.5 million people and concludes that the U.S.—with its "punitive criminal legal system" and high incarceration rates—is an "outlier nation."
"Wide access to voting is a cornerstone of rights-respecting, democratic government."
More than half of the countries examined in the report "never or rarely deny a person's right to vote because of a conviction." When placed among the remaining countries "where laws deny the right in broader sets of circumstances," the report states, "the U.S. is toward the restrictive end of the spectrum and disenfranchises, largely through U.S. state law, a wider swath of people on the whole."
"In five countries—the Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Morocco, and Togo—people whose convictions fall in certain categories are disenfranchised permanently," the report observes. "These five countries are in the same category with the 11 U.S. states that permanently disenfranchise at least some people convicted of felonies."
Alison Leal Parker, deputy U.S. director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that "wide access to voting is a cornerstone of rights-respecting, democratic government, which is why the right to vote is protected in international human rights law and why the U.S. should reform its outlier status on voting rights."
"The right to vote, and the legitimacy of the democratic system in the United States, should not depend on its criminal legal system, which is built upon and perpetuates discrimination," said Parker.
While a number of states have moved in recent years to loosen voting restrictions for people with felony convictions and restore the franchise at the time of a person's release from incarceration, just four U.S. jurisdictions—Vermont, Maine, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C.—allow people to vote while they are imprisoned.
Late last year, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) introduced legislation that would guarantee voting rights to incarcerated citizens and end felony disenfranchisement in federal elections. The bill has just five cosponsors in the Senate and 25 in the House, even though polling data has shown a majority of Americans support guaranteeing voting rights to all, including incarcerated people.
The new report calls on the United States to "end felony disenfranchisement and extend voting rights to all otherwise voting-eligible persons without regard to their criminal legal system contact or convictions." It also recommends that the country eliminate all requirements that citizens pay court-related fines before being allowed to vote again—a practice the report calls a "modern-day poll tax."
"In the United States, this policy is rooted in historical practices intended to reduce electoral participation of citizens of color who would otherwise be eligible to vote," the human rights groups wrote.
Jonathan Topaz, a staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, said Thursday that "even as we've seen more U.S. states make progress in expanding rights restoration, there remain substantial challenges to voter access."
"Convoluted rights restoration laws have resulted in voter confusion about eligibility among returning citizens," said Topaz "Additionally, in many states, returning citizens become eligible to vote only upon payment of various legal financial obligations such as fees, costs, fines, and/or restitution, which essentially institutes a pay-to-vote system. These obstacles must be abolished to ensure full civic participation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
The Gaza Project Exposes Israel's 'Chilling Pattern' of Killing Journalists
"This is one of the most flagrant attacks on press freedom that I can remember," said one campaigner. "The impact on press freedom in Gaza, in the region, and the rest of the world is something we cannot accept."
Jun 26, 2024
With more than 100 media professionals—nearly all of them Palestinian—killed in Gaza since October, a group of 50 reporters from 13 international organizations this week shared the results of a new investigative journalism initiative aimed at exposing the deadly toll Israel's onslaught has taken on those reporting it to the world.
The Gaza Project—led by the Paris-based nonprofit Forbidden Stories—"analyzed nearly 100 cases of journalists and media workers killed in Gaza, as well as other cases in which members of the press have been allegedly targeted, threatened, or injured since October 7," when Hamas-led attacks on Israel left more than 1,100 people dead and over 240 others kidnapped.
"Faced with what is being reported as the record number of journalists killed, Forbidden Stories, whose mission is to pursue the work of journalists who are killed because of their work, set out to investigate the targeting of journalists," the group said
"For four months, Forbidden Stories and its partners investigated the circumstances of their killings, as well as those who have been targeted, threatened, and injured in the West Bank and Gaza," it added. "These investigations point to a chilling pattern and suggest some journalists may have been targeted even though they were identifiable as press."
Gaza Project member Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned what it called an "apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families," noting cases in which media workers were killed while wearing press insignia and after being threatened by Israeli officials.
"This is one of the most flagrant attacks on press freedom that I can remember," CPJ program director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said of the ongoing war. "The impact on press freedom in Gaza, in the region, and the rest of the world is something we cannot accept."
Basel Khair Al-Din, a Palestinian journalist in Gaza who believes he was targeted by a drone strike while wearing a press vest, said, "Whereas this press vest was supposed to identify and protect us, according to international laws, international conventions, and the Geneva Conventions, it is now a threat to us."
"It's this vest that almost got us killed, as has happened to so many of our fellow journalists and media workers," he added.
Groups like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International have called for official investigations into Israeli killing of journalists including an October 13 attack that killed 37-year-old Lebanese Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded half a dozen other journalists who were covering cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.
Dylan Collins, an American deputy editor at Al Jazeera English, was wounded while administering first aid to Christina Assi, an Italian Agence-France Presse journalist whose legs were blown off in the attack.
Reutersdetermined that an Israeli tank crew "fired two shells in quick succession" at the journalists, who HRW said were "clearly identifiable as members of the media, and had been stationary for at least 75 minutes." HRW "found no evidence of a military target near the journalists' location."
Amnesty International, meanwhile, asserted that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strike was "likely a direct attack on civilians that must be investigated as a war crime."
Asa Kasher, the lead author of the IDF's Code of Ethics, toldForbidden Stories that "no member of the press should have been killed under normal circumstances of hostilities in Gaza."
"It shouldn't happen, even a single one," he added. "It's illegal. It's unethical. The person who does it should be brought to court."
Israel's alleged deliberate targeting of journalists is part of the evidence presented in a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel being reviewed by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Separately, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), also located in the Dutch city, is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including extermination and forced starvation in the case of the Israelis and extermination, rape, and torture in the case of Hamas.
The international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders last month filed a third ICC complaint alleging "war crimes against journalists in Gaza."
According to Palestinian and international officials, at least 37,718 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed during Israel's 264-day assault on Gaza, which has also left more than 86,300 people wounded and 11,000 others missing and feared dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of homes and other bombed-out buildings.
Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have also been forcibly displaced, and the Israeli siege on Gaza has caused widespread—and deadly—starvation and what the head of the United Nations food agency called a "full-blown famine" in northern parts of the strip.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Democracy Must Be Respected': Bolivian Leader Replaces Military Chiefs Over Coup Attempt
Leftists and political leaders around the world slammed the coup effort as Bolivia's trade union federation called for an emergency mass mobilization and a general strike.
Jun 26, 2024
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
Bolivian President Luis Arce replaced top military leaders on Wednesday in response to an attempted coup d'état in which troops took over Plaza Murillo in La Paz and rammed an armored vehicle into the doors of the presidential palace so soldiers could storm the building.
"We denounce irregular mobilizations of some units of the Bolivian army," Arce, a member of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party,
said on social media. "Democracy must be respected."
As
The Associated Pressreported:
In a video of Arce surrounded by ministers in the palace, he said: "The country is facing an attempted coup d'état. Here we are, firm in Casa Grande, to confront any coup attempt. We need the Bolivian people to organize."
Arce confronted the general commander of the army—Juan José Zúñiga, who appeared to be leading the rebellion—in the palace hallway, as shown on video on Bolivian television. "I am your captain, and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination," Arce said.
Zúñiga told local media that "the three chiefs of the armed forces have come to express our dismay. There will be a new Cabinet of ministers, surely things will change, but our country cannot continue like this any longer."
Sharing his demands, Zúñiga said, "Stop destroying, stop impoverishing our country, stop humiliating our army."
The general claimed that the air force, army, and navy were "mobilized" and "the police force is also with us."
Meanwhile, "Arce swore in three new leaders of the armed forces," according toBuenos Aires Herald managing editor Amy Booth. "At the ceremony, army Commander in Chief Wilson Sánchez ordered the forces back to their barracks and at the moment they seem to be listening."
Despite the rift between former Bolivian President Evo Morales, who remains head of MAS, and Arce, who was his finance minister, Bolivia's ex-leader also spoke out against the military action on Wednesday, declaring that "the coup d'état is brewing."
"At this time, personnel from the armed forces and tanks are deployed in Plaza Murillo," Morales said. "They called an emergency meeting at the army general staff in Miraflores at 3:00 pm in combat uniforms. Call on the social movements of the countryside and the city to defend democracy."
After the change in military leaders, Morales—who has denounced his own 2019 ouster as a coup—demanded that "a criminal process" targeting "Zúñiga and his accomplices" begin immediately.
Wednesday evening, Bolivia's attorney general ordered "all legal actions that correspond to the initiation of the criminal investigation against Gen. Juan José Zúñiga and all other participants in the events that occurred," according toKawsachun News.
The Bolivian Workers' Center (COB), the South American country's trade union federation, had "called for an emergency mass mobilization and a general strike in response to the ongoing coup attempt," Progressive International highlighted on social media.
Progressive International also urged "international attention to these grave violations of Bolivian democracy."
Condemnation of the coup attempt and expressions of solidarity with those opposing it were shared around the world.
"We condemn the attempted coup in Bolivia and send our solidarity to President Luis Arce and his democratically elected government," declared the Peace & Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn, a member of the U.K. Parliament who used to lead the Labour Party.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that "I firmly condemn the attempts to overthrow the democratically elected government of Bolivia. The European Union stands by democracies. We express our strong support for the constitutional order and rule of law in Bolivia."
U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) emphasized that she is "standing in solidarity with the Bolivian people as they fight to preserve their democracy," and "the coup attempt must be unequivocally condemned."
The Democratic Socialists of America's International Committee wrote on social media that "we extend our solidarity to the Bolivian people during this imminent emergency."
Morales said later Wednesday that "we appreciate all the expressions of solidarity and support for Bolivian democracy expressed by presidents, political and social leaders of the world. We are convinced that democracy is the only way to resolve any difference and that institutions and the rule of law must be respected. We reiterate the call for all those involved in this riot to be arrested and tried."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular